Sect. 92The Trinity in the New TestamentThe Trinity in the New Testament

In the Old Testament, the dogma of one God, Creator, and Ruler of the world is the doctrine round which all others are grouped; the Trinity of Persons is only mentioned with more or less distinctness in connection with the Incarnation. In the New Testament, on the contrary, the mystery of the Trinity is the central point of doctrine; it is here, therefore, that we must begin our investigation. We shall first consider the texts treating of the three Divine Persons together, and afterwards those treating of each Person in particular. We shall prove from Scripture the Personality of each Person as distinguished from the others by the mode of origin, and then the Divinity of each, from which the essential identity of the Three Persons flows as a consequence.

I. In the Gospels the Three Persons are mentioned at four of the most important epochs of the history of Revelation, viz. (1) at the Annunciation (Luke 1:35); (2) at the Baptism of our Lord and the beginning of His public life (Matt. 3:13, sqq.); (3) in the last solemn speech of our Lord before His Passion (John 14, 15, 16); and (4) after His Passion and before His Ascension, when giving the Apostles the commandment to preach and to baptize (Matt. 28:19). Of these texts, the third is the most explicit as to the distinction of the Persons; the fourth points out best the distinction and unity, and declares at the same time that the Trinity is the fundamental dogma of the Christian Faith. The second text gives us the most perfect external manifestation of the Three Persons: the Son in His visible Nature, the Holy Ghost as a Dove, the Father speaking in an audible Voice.

1. Luke 1:35: “The Holy Ghost (πνεῦμα ἅγιον) shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, and therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” The “Most High” is here God as Father of the Son, according to ver. 32: “He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High.”

2. St. Matthew (3:16, 17), relating the baptism of Christ, says, “And Jesus, being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened to Him: and He saw the Spirit of God descending, as a dove, and coming upon Him. And, behold, a voice from heaven, saying, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”

3. In the speech after the Last Supper, as recorded by St. John, three passages occur which may be connected thus: “I will ask the Father and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of truth (14:16).… “But when the Paraclete shall come, Whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, Who proceedeth from the Father, He shall give testimony of Me (15:26).… But when He, the Spirit of truth, shall come, He will teach you all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself, but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak.… He shall glorify Me, because He shall receive of Mine and will declare (it) to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine; therefore I said that He shall receive of Mine and declare it to you” (16:13–15).

4. The command to baptize: “Go ye therefore and teach all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matt. 28:19). The form of Baptism is here given as the first thing to be taught to the receiver of the Sacrament. The import of the teaching is this: the three subjects named, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are They by Whose authority and power Baptism works the forgiveness of sin and confers sanctifying grace, and are They for Whose Majesty the baptized are taken possession of and put under obligation—in other words, to Whose honour and worship they are consecrated. The latter meaning is more prominent in the Greek formula εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, the former more in the Latin in nomine. Hence (a) the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three Persons, because only persons possess power and authority. (b) They are distinct Persons, because distinguished by different names. (c) They are equal in power and dignity, and all possess Divine power, because they all stand in the same relation to the baptized: forgiving sin, conferring sanctifying grace, exacting worship and submission of the kind required in baptism, are Divine prerogatives. (d) The singular number, “in the name,” indicates that the Divine Dignity which this formula expresses is not multiplied in the Three Persons, but is undivided, so that the one Divine principle and end proposed to the baptized is likewise but one Divine Being. Cf. Franzelin, De Trin., thes. iii.

II. From the Epistles four passages are commonly selected in which the Three Persons appear at the same time as distinct and of the same Essence. The strongest would be the comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7), the authenticity of which is, indeed, disputed, but which, on Catholic principles, may be defended. See, on this point, the exhaustive dissertation of Franzelin, l.c, thes. iv., and Wiseman’s Letters on 1 John 5:7.

1. “No man can say the Lord Jesus but by the Holy Ghost. Now, there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord [= Christ, the Son of God]; and there are diversities of operations, but the same God [= the Father], Who worketh all in all” (1 Cor. 12:3–6).

2. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communication of the Holy Ghost be with you all” (2 Cor. 13:13).

3. “To the elect … according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:1, 2).

4. “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not in water only, but in water and blood. And it is the Spirit which testifieth that Christ is the truth. For there are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that give testimony on earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood: and these three are one. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater” (1 John 5:5–9).

The sense of the context is not without difficulty. It depends upon the question whether St. John had in view the error of the Gnostics, who attributed to Christ an apparent, not a real body; or that of the Cerinthians, who distinguished Christ the Son of God from the man Jesus, and taught that, at the Baptism, the Son of God descended upon Jesus, but left Him again at the Passion. In the first supposition, St. John had to prove the reality of the humanity of Christ; and, in this case, the water is the water that flowed from His side on the cross, and the “spirit” of vers. 6 and 8 is the spirit (= soul) which Jesus gave up on the cross (cf. John 19:30, 34, 35). In the second supposition (which is to us by far the more probable) the point was to prove the unity, constant and indissoluble, of Jesus with the Son of God; and, in this case, ver. 6 means: This Jesus, Who is the Son of God, came as Son of God in the blood of His Passion as well as in the water of the Jordan, and has shown what He is by sending the Holy Ghost and His gifts on the day of Pentecost as He had promised. In each of these three events, a testimony was given in favour of the dignity of Jesus as Son of God and Christ: at His Baptism, the voice of the Father; at the Passion, the affirmation of Jesus Himself; on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Ghost fulfilling the promises made by Jesus. St. John points to this continued threefold testimony as a proof of the continued unity of Christ, and he strengthens and explains the uniformity of this testimony on earth, by adding (ver. 7) that it corresponds with the three Heavenly Witnesses, from Whom it proceeded, and each of Whom had His share in it. In this connection, the unity asserted in ver. 7 need not be of the same order as that of ver. 8, viz. the unity of testimony; on the contrary, as it contains the highest reason of the latter, it must be of a higher order. At any rate, the Witnesses of ver. 7 appear as Persons giving testimony, whereas the witnesses of ver. 8 appear as the instrument or the vehicle of the testimony. Hence the unity of the witnesses in ver. 8 can be no other than a unity or uniformity of testimony; but the unity of the personal Witnesses, affirmed without any restriction, must be taken as an absolute and essential unity, in consequence of which They act in absolute uniformity when giving testimony—that is, They appear as one Witness, with one and the same authority, knowledge, and veracity. This is still more manifest from ver. 9, where the former testimonies are simply described as “the testimony of God,” and opposed to the testimony of man; consequently the Heavenly Witnesses must be One, because They are the one true God.

III. The doctrine contained in the above texts is further strengthened and developed in the passages relating to one or other of the Three Persons. The Personality and Divinity of the Father require no special treatment, because they are unquestioned, and, besides, are necessarily implied in the personal character of the Son. As to God the Son, His distinct Personality and origin from God the Father are so clearly contained in the name of Son, that only the identity of Substance requires further proof. But both Personality and identity of Essence must be distinctly proved of the Third Person, Whose name, Spirit, is not necessarily the name of a person, but rather the name of something belonging to a person.